


Let Me Fix It

by goodgirlwhoshopeful



Series: 100 Ways to say I Love You prompts [1]
Category: Being Human (UK), Being Human (UK) RPF
Genre: 1960s, Angst, F/M, Human/Vampire Relationship, Mitchell x Josie, Prompt Fic, She's a Bad Influence, Vampires, and iorwen made me, because I really miss this show, bh, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6687769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodgirlwhoshopeful/pseuds/goodgirlwhoshopeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the 100 Ways to Say 'I Love You' Tumblr prompt list....<br/>"Come Here. Let me fix it."<br/>Being Human UK – Mitchell / Josie, as requested by the lovely @iorwen. </p><p> </p><p>I'm more of a Mitchell / Annie shipper myself, but this was really interesting, since I do think that Josie holds an interesting place in Mitchell's psyche that he never really let go of... As much as Annie was woefully...well, Annie... Josie was his First Love... A love he could never keep for long... </p><p> </p><p>Angsty/bittersweet fic    - all inspired by @iorwen and I's conversation on tumblr about why on earth Josie and Mitchell never lasted... but an interesting character study to do, so thank you!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Fix It

**Author's Note:**

> the ending of Mitchell's letter is taken from a favourite tumblr poet of mine – now famous – Erin @thepoeticunderground

_"You're a funny li'l thing, you know that?"_

That's what he'd said when she'd kept talking, despite the fact he had her tied to a bookshelf. 

 _"You don't scare me,"_ she'd countered in reply, because it had been the truth. _Complete_ truth. He had never scared her, not in the way a killer should. It was foolish, really; totally against the human's supposed internal flight mechanism. She hadn't _wanted_ to run from him, not even when she had the opportunity and almost got away. She found herself running down the stairs... and half wishing he would run after her.

She hadn’t be able to run far, what with Herrick the policeman masquerading vampire leader making sure of that, but a part of her had been glad, because at least if she was to die, then the sight of Mitchell's striking face would be the last thing she would see. His eyes were dark with utter misery, but she had an uncanny ability to also see their innate kindness. She had only known him but half an hour… but she simply _knew._ He _yearned_  to be kind. 

She'd pressured Mitchell with question after question until he was entirely wound up with no escape but to shout the truth at her, a truth she had gathered from the moment he had first threatened to kill her. _"This is between us,"_ she'd said. _"I know you're not like him. I know you want this to end."_

He'd pretended to kill her, terrifying her half to death so she would scream, all for her own safety as he made it look to Herrick as though he had done the job. The arrogant arsehole hadn't bothered to check, of course.

A week later, the dark stranger came back, intent on leaving an anonymous bouquet of roses on her doorstep, but she'd caught him on the front path.

His eyes had been even more miserable then. 

 _"Help me,"_ he'd begged, his jaw length bush of curls about his face in the exact haphazard manner it had been the first time. His eyes had shone unashamedly with unshed tears and it had taken everything in her not to weep with him. 

He may have been a stranger, but she knew two things: one, his name was John Mitchell, and two, he needed someone to love him. 

She remembered thinking she'd be damned if she let that role ago to anyone else.

He'd kissed her with lips so practiced that they played her instantly like a full orchestra – beyond that point she was at his mercy. They'd barely made it past the kitchen before all clothing was abandoned, though she had been wearing very little in the first place. (It had been July, after all). 

They made love in her cast iron bed, the same one she had laid in just the night before while fantasising that he was lying there with her. It had squeaked and groaned with the movement, but neither of them noticed until it was over, far too lost in one another for such distractions. 

It had been everything making love to your soul mate should be, (minus the vampire throat cautiousness, of course) and continued to be for week after week and month after month. They'd visit hotels and lock themselves away, only leaving for chocolate, cigarettes and, on one occasion, midnight walks along Bristol's breezy beaches. They were foolish and silly with one another because it all felt completely effortless. It had felt like breathing, being with Mitchell... until one day it didn’t. 

 

Today, it was exactly one year ago that they agreed to try... and today, Mitchell had come home bad again. for the first time since she had met him. His eyes were hazed over like they would sometimes get on bad days, but they were worse because they were shut off and cold. She had sat and waited and waited for him – they were supposed to have a romantic meal in from six – but he had been late. Very late. 

And when he had finally returned, she found herself wishing he hadn't.

They argued for hours. So long, in fact, that Josie was not sure she could speak at all anymore... and then he'd said the words...and she her knees gave in.

But not before she threw the nearest object across the room at him.

"Mitchell,  _please_." Her begging resurfaced again without prompt or hope of heeding her tone. She wanted to tell herself to stop, that it was time to let him go, but the very idea of doing filled her with such gut wrenching panic in her very core. 

"Josie. It's for the best. The _vampires_ – They've found us – found  _you_  – I can't have you hurt – I _won't_!"

She braced the floor and felt her nose touch the carpet as she keeled over in despair. Her tears had been loud and abrasive at first, filled with rage. Now, they were silent and all consuming. 

"Josie – Jose – darlin' – please – _please_ , don't cry – I _have_ to do this – for you – "

"– For  _me?!"_  She whirled round in offence and took in the sight of him with distain. His eyes were pinched and distant and his fists were clenched at his sides. 

He was in agony, too.  _Good,_ she thought. 

“ _Bullshit!_ How can this be for _me_ , John?!" she screeched, letting the words tumble from her without restraint or censorship. “I _love_ you! Does that count for _nothing?!_ Are you _trying_ to destroy me?!”

He was stood, bracing the door frame and crying, too. He had always been one who could never hold in his emotions. As hard as he tried, all he had ever _really_ wanted was for someone to vent them to. He could never hide them from her. Until today, for a whole _year_ , she had been that person. 

“Have you been listening?!” He filled the gap between them in a split second, dropping to his knees in front of her. He looked somewhat biblical, with his jaw length curls mussed about his face. He had remembered their dinner plans – that much was clear by the best wide collar shirt he wore – but where his tie had once been knotted tidily at his collar, it now hung limp around his neck. Still, the effort was there and it made her heart ache. If only the night could have gone as it should have… _If only._

“You will _die_ , Josie. They’ll _kill_ you – You’ll be dead –” He pulled her to him until his lips were crushed against her face, in a desperate, feverish attempt to quash her fury with his affections. She could feel him shaking as she grasped his shoulders in clawed hands. When he drew back, his stark, wide eyes told her of his despair – the same despair she had seen in them the very first day they met. His tears fell onto her cheek as he lingered just above her. “You _cannot_ die. I could not _bare_ it – I would not survive it, Josie!”

“And _I’m_ just supposed to survive this?! _You,_ leaving me?”

He shook his head and sobbed again and dropped his lips to her head, just before letting out a wail of despair. “I will… _always…_ love you,” he croaked forcefully, gently trying to pry her fisted hands from his shirt. “You are the one and only _love_ of my _life,_ Jose! I'm so,  _so_  sorry – " 

“How can you _do_ this?!” she groaned through a tear clogged throat. “ _How_ can this be for me when it feels like you’ve _ripped_  my heart from my chest with your _teeth?!”_ She was no longer able to subdue her hysterical as she screamed into his face. His bowed his head, gripping her painfully, ashamedly sobbing at the floor. “It’s a heart that beats for _you –_  and you've _crushed_ it!"  Her whole body shuddered as she sobbed into the carpet. “If you go, you’ll _kill_ me, Mitchell!” 

If she were to look up, she knew she’d see him weeping openly. His sobs were guttural and barely restrained within his chest and the sound almost drove her to insanity. 

“No!” he gasped, evidently taken aback. “No, Josie – _baby_ – you can’t mean that!” he sniffed.

The tender term of endearment robbed her of breath and would've rendered her broken if she hadn’t been so _furious_.

“I _do!”_ Her tone is beseeched and tight as her throat ached painfully with tears. “You’re _killing_ me!” Her fingers crawled at her own neck, feeling terror tighten around her like a noose. 

Mitchell’s face was now red and blotchy with his tears, his eyes swollen as they often were after he shed even one tear. She looked into his bleak eyes and could see this was a battle he would never allow her to win, stubborn sod that he was. 

After yet another apology slipping from his lips, it was as though all rationality left her. 

“I’d rather die, John,” she whispered hazily, not exhausted as the deepest mourning filled her, leaving her up to her neck in toxic hopelessness. She used his Christian name very sparingly, as anyone did who really knew him. She saved it for times when she wanted her words to truly make the greatest possible impact. Never more did she need the sentiment to work than now. “ _Please_ don’t ask me to go.”

Sniffing violently with his now streaming nose, he pulled her up so she was facing him again, no longer face down on the carpet. She looked into his beautiful face, all slightly olive skin, expressive, chocolate eyes and sharp lines and she mourned his loss already. Suddenly, his miserable eyes were looking down and alert, blinking away the tears that clung to his striking lashes. 

“Baby, you’re bleedin’!” She looked down to find he was right – that she’d leant in some of the glass that had smashed against the wall in her rage. She watched in awe as he went about inspecting and cleaning her wound, seemingly with little to no discomfort. There had been very few occasions in the year they had known one another that she had witnessed him before blood like this – _never_ her own blood. What, for a split second, filled her with panic, now filled her with wonder.  

As he methodically plastered up the wound, her rage dissipated. She knew what she was experiencing, of course: the seven stages of grief. 

 _But I shouldn’t be,_ she wanted to say. _Because no one has to go away!_

“Oh, _no,_ ” she cried, taking in the sight afresh of the image she had done to the room. In the corner, against the wall, lay her ‘treasures box’, an antique little chest from Mitchell’s era of the 1910’s in which she been keeping all their treasures of their time together. Having taken so many polaroids of one another on their adventures – some _most_ unsavoury in nature – he had concluded she needed a place to keep them, where only they knew they would be. The next day, he’d come home with the chest and explained that h had had one just like it when he was young… and alive.

It had been the first gift he had bought her…and now, just like their wonderful year together, it lay in pieces. 

“I broke it,” she sighed sadly, unceremoniously wiping her nose with the back of her hand as she knelt to collect the three pieces it was now in. Mitchell was instantly beside her, piling up the photographs that now littered the floor. 

Her bashful grin behind her fingers; his head-thrown-back, eyes-closed laughter; a piece of the rock they ate in Brighton; the ticket stub from The Beatles. Captured moments of their romantic hotel seclusions; his olive completion contrasting with her milky one as she captured moment of moment of heady lust. 

Picking up her favourite polaroid, she handed it to Mitchell without looking. She didn’t need to. She long had it memorised; his mouth slack with euphoria beneath her as she pressed the flash, his ebony curls about his head on the pillow like a crown. 

The moment would never leave her. She did not need a photo to recall it as though it were yesterday. The photographs littered the floor, fragmented and scattered, just like her the pieces of her soul – as though their home had been raised to the ground from its very foundations. 

“Come’ere,” Mitchell murmured lowly, in his way that always made everything feel fixable, like nothing in the world could phase him. “Let me fix it.”

She smiled in spite of her gloom because some things about John Mitchell would never change. _Always a gentleman,_ she thought.

“You were always so _kind,_ ” she sighed, almost to herself rather than to him. Either way, as Mitchell raised his eyes to look back at her, they were just the same – soft and warm and _kind_ as they always were. 

 

They made love that night one last time, and while it was by far the greatest of any night in Josie’s life, it was also by far the utter worst. The intensity of their last intimacy was so powerful that she was unable to keep from tears _long_ before the end, by which time Mitchell had tears running down his cheeks, too. Afterward, she lay, rigid as ice, and held him to her as though her life depended on it. In a sense, it did, as her heart was fracturing in her chest with every passing moment, knowing that each lead her closer to losing him. 

She fought of sleep with all her might, but the sex had proved an unwise choice. 

When she woke, he was gone. 

The antique chest last beside her, now as good as new. Beside it, lay a note in the elegant hand of a gentleman time had long forgotten. 

The words etched into her heart and remained, long after she met Stephen, and long, _long_ after she married him. 

Even when she had Stephen's children, she guiltily thought of the young, Irishman's words every once in a while, immortal in her soul but totally unbeknown to all those closest to her. 

She kept the note safe, along with the stubs and the rock and the polaroids, locked in a old little chest bought for her by a ghost of her past, and while she thought back on what resided within often, she never once turned the key to take a look, for fear that the wound, so painstakingly stacked and bandaged by her drive and her pride, would tear and bleed anew. 

 

* * *

 

_My Dearest, Dearest Josie,_

 

_I never once told you, but I dreamed often that, perhaps, I’d one day see you carry my child, (though I’m not even sure if such a thing is possible). It was always entirely implausible, but I dreamt of it anyway, because that life, a love and a family, was all the man I used to be ever wanted._

_You helped me find him again deep within the layers the monster has created... and for that I will be more grateful than I could possibly put into words._

_I can only hope I do your selflessness and utter majesty_ _proud_ _for the rest of my days._

 

_Please do not come looking for me. Please understand why it is I have to do this._

_Just as it would be agony for you to see me hurt, it would be the death of me_ _and my sanity_ _to see yours. I would become a man neither of us could bare for worry of your safety, which I could never be certain of now they know. I could never live knowing I was the reason they got to you, and I could never live with myself if you were ever to become like me – You were always so beautiful, so _ _human ,_ _so_ _perfect_ _– thus I am afraid I must put you in what feels like intolerable agony now, for your own good._

_Please know this year has been the most magnificent of my seventy-one years. You have shown me things no amount of immortality could show to any man._

_But I ask one last thing of you – not that I deserve your compliance, after all you’ve sacrificed for me… but please,_ _live._

_You must _ _live,_ _my love._

_You may say, what if you wither away? What if you die?_

_But, darling Josie,_ _what if you live?_

_What if you fly?_

 

 _Live , for _ _me – f_ _or what we could have had, and will have, in the next life.  
Live._

 _I love you, now and for all eternity.  
_ _Your, John._

* * *

 

 

 

She did live, as he asked of her. A lot, in fact. She had children, and _they_ had children, and she lived a life that was joyous and content and utterly happy, in the end.

She did eventually face death one day, but this time it was not thanks to a heart chattered into pieces on her '60's carpet by a devastating love... but with a diagnosis of lung cancer. She became used to hospital grey and arrangements for funerals, all without thought of much else other than caring for the family she was soon to leave behind.

The universe must have stood, all that time, _looking_ at the woman who was once a girl who fell in love with a vampire, and found it all rather funny, she thought... because one day – the day she was informed of her imminent end – it brought him to her again. 

_"Black coffee. No sugar. Just a splash of cold water from the tap."_

She rose her eyes from the hospital cafeteria table – in the middle of a daydream about what music she should choose for her funeral – only to be thrown back over thirty years. 

There, not two foot away, were those same dark, kind,  _warm_ eyes she had accepted she would never again see – and _just_  as her mind remembered them! They crinkled at the edges as he wore that same, coy smile – the one that was crooked and showed off his white,  _gleaming_  teeth.

"Hello, Josie."

_You have shown me things no amount of immortality could show to any man._

 

 

His words rang true, because just like that _, just_ for a moment... despite being days from death... Josie Hunter was twenty three again. 


End file.
